July 10, 2013

Mets Anger Indians to Avoid Offending Braves: The New York Mets decided to hold a Native American Heritage Day on July 25, working with the American Indian Community House non-profit to put on pregame festivities that included traditional dancing and singing outside Citi Field. But the opponent that day is the Atlanta Braves. Fearing it would look like a protest against the Braves mascot and the team's offensive fake-Indian fan rituals, the Mets called off the singing and dancing. Now there will be no American Indians and no event. "It's disappointing," said Rick Chavolla of the American Indian Community House nonprofit, "but it sort of amplifies a pattern of what we've been dealing with for hundreds of years."

Wouldn't be surprised if the Mets, in their own special way, looked at rescheduling the event when either the Padres or Brewers are in town, and then went back to the community and asked them: "Well, what'll it be folks? Christianity or fire water?"

(With half my ancestry coming from County Antrim via the port of Cobh in County Cork, a great distance to the south, the correct answer of course is "both").

Perhaps the Mets have inadvertently helped push along the cause of getting rid of all of this sort of nicknames. The fact that they think that it is less objectionable to pull the football away yet again from American Indians rather than possibly look like they are enabling a protest of a nickname and rituals that have been protested for decades is proof that their priorities really are ridiculously backwards, and there really is a simple and obvious solution.